{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Regenaissance Podcast","title":"He Won $1.28 Billion From Big Meat in Court... Then a Judge Took It Away - Mike Callicrate | #120","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":7165,"description":"Ep 120: Mike Callicrate\nMike Callicrate runs Ranch Foods Direct and Callicrate Beef out of Colorado Springs and St. Francis, Kansas. He built a fully vertically integrated operation involving raising cattle, slaughtering on-site, cutting, and selling direct to consumers. Our conversation follows his life story from his childhood on a small Colorado farm, a rodeo scholarship that led him into an animal science degree, and years running large-scale feedlots before he became one of ten ranchers who sued major meatpacker IBP in 1996 over market manipulation, a case that ended in a $1.28 billion jury verdict the judge later overturned.\nWe get into why that loss pushed him to stop selling livestock and start selling meat instead, how Ranch Foods Direct's on-site slaughter facility, composting system, and bone char/biochar production work together, and the economics that separate a small direct-to-consumer operation from an industrial one. \nKey topics\n- From rodeo and animal science to building and later rejecting industrial feedlots\n- The 1996 lawsuit against IBP, the overturned $1.28 billion verdict, and the Packers and Stockyards Act\n- How producers' share of the consumer dollar collapsed since 1970\n- Fraud, political influence, and market consolidation\nWhat \"pink slime\" and lean finely textured beef actually are\n- The grass-fed/grass-finished labelling problem \n- Declining Ogallala Aquifer levels and what it means for ranching's future\n- Building local maker-owned marketplaces as an alternative to scaling up\nTimestamps:\n0:00 – Intro + backstory: rodeo, animal science degree, early feedlots\n6:00 – Building industrial feedlots, growing concerned with market concentration\n12:00 – Decision to sue IBP, being blackballed by buyers\n18:00 – The lawsuit's path to trial and the $1.28B verdict\n30:00 – The judge's reversal + Packers and Stockyards Act explained\n36:00 – Shifting from selling livestock to selling meat direct\n44:00 – Building the on-site slaughter facility and...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/al8BwjjnR2m8I-3vEq0Iyx2E0FqQ9QB0aLPF4D6flnY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81YzE3/NmFmYjZiNmRkZDdm/Y2MwYzk5ZjI5ZjRj/YzgwZi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}